KAMPALA, UGANDA — On Saturday, August 3, Uganda’s homosexual community stepped out of the shadows in red wigs and glittering stilettos.

The country’s second gay pride parade, held on a sandy beach in Entebbe, drew over a hundred people eager to tell the world that they are out, they are proud and they are not afraid to show it.

Last year’s parade, the first ever in Uganda, was broken up by police, and several people were arrested. But the fact that they were able to pull it off at all has given the community newfound confidence, says activist Kelly Mukwano.

The Secretariat of the David Kato Vision & Voice Award is calling for nominations for the 2014 award.

The award celebrates the life and work of Ugandan human rights activist David Kato, who was murdered in his Kampala home in January 2011. To honor David’s legacy, the award was founded to recognize leaders who work to uphold the sexual rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people around the world.

Mounir Baatour, the leader of one of Tunisia’s secular opposition parties, was arrested in March for having sex with a man.

The Tunisian authorities subjected Baatour to a “rectal examination” to verify the charges purported by staff at a Tunis hotel that he had committed the “illegal act” in the hotel spa. He was sentenced to three months in prison for breaking the law against sodomy, and the prosecution has since appealed for an even longer sentence.

CAPETOWN, South Africa – Muhsin Hendrick is not your typical imam. The 46-year-old South African is also openly gay, and he preaches that gay Muslims can believe in the Koran and Islam without fear of condemnation.

In the cascade of comparisons made recently between abortion and same-sex marriage — and the specter of a political backlash arising from a Supreme Court ruling advancing gay marriage — one glaring distinction between the two issues has been largely overlooked by prognosticators: the power of coming out.

Sixty percent of Americans now say they have a close friend or family member who is gay, an 11 percent jump from 2010. In the 1990s, most Americans said exactly the opposite.

A jolt was sent through the LGBT blogosphere when the groundbreaking lesbian blogger, Pam Spaulding, “blogmistress” of Pam's House Blend, announced this week that after 9 years she is closing down her blog on July 1.